Wish I check these things on a regular basis in my Salesforce org as an Admin before it blows up..

As a salesforce administrator, it is always painful when we notice our production orgs blowing up because we failed to update a particular feature before the due date . I am talking of features which we had setup in salesforce with dates which needs periodic checks and updates on all our orgs. Would it be nice if there is a checklist which would help us to review these features? I decided to create a time based checklist which would help salesforce admins to keep track of on a regular basis. Just a disclaimer!! Most of the features you may not use in your org but this would be a good start. I have broken down these tasks as follows

Yearly checklist: These are tasks which need to be checked once a year.

Monthly checklist – These are tasks which would need to be checked on a monthly basis.

Due date driven checklists: These are tasks which need to be done before a due date.

Yearly checklist

Here is a list of features which you need to check on a yearly basis to ensure the most recent updated data exist in salesforce.

Holidays – This feature needs to be updated on a yearly basis with the right dates like Thanksgiving, Columbus Day etc which always come on different dates.

Business hours – This can also be revisited if the hours do change with seasons or change in policy has been done on the organization.

Monthly Tasks

It is important to generate reports which would show data based on months which would need to be reviewed on a monthly basis so that we can be proactive on upcoming issues rather than the user complaining on it.

Analytical snapshots

Organizations which use monthly snapshots to track their report data have to be reviewed to ensure the snapshots were created successfully.

Data storage – Data storage has to be reviewed on monthly basis for anomalies which would help the admin to spot any extraneous data usage like data imports, custom objects filled up. By reviewing these extra data storage, admins can act on them to wipe them out and save some storage space.

Login history – Login history reports are helpful to watch on a monthly basis which would help to watch for low usage users who never login to salesforce. Adoption tactics can be done on these users to increase adoption.

Sandbox refreshes:

If you are following agile practice and do monthly releases, sandboxes might need to be refreshed to keep the org on sync with production.

Time based workflows

If you are using time based workflows where workflows are trigged based on dates, it is important to create reports which report on exceptions where the workflow object is waiting for action by the users. By exposing the reports to the users, they can quickly act on them and get the job done.

Approval process

It is also important to keep an eye on approval processes where there is always the possibility of some data waiting on users to approve and sitting with no action on them. The best practice is to create exception reports to notify users on these records or have email triggers on a periodic basis to notify the users to approve. A report which shows users who always fall behind on approval dates would help to train them better to get the approvals done on time.

Due date driven tasks.

These are tasks which a salesforce admin would need to do within the due date.

certificate expiration date

If your salesforce org uses ssl for authentication to connect with external applications, it is important to record the ssl certificate expiration dates. When the certificates reach expiration, you need to be ready with a new certificate and upload the certificate in the org.

Delegated admins

If you have setup delegated admins for your users to approve the approval process on their absence, it is important to build reports or notify the users on the delegated admin expiration date. This would help the approval process to continue without issues.

3.Password policy

If you have passwords which are set to expire within 90 days or defined time period, it is important to create reports on users who have failed to update the password till the expiration date. This would help to notify the users to change their password and also help them to login to salesforce without issues.

Feel free to post your comments and please email me at buyan@sforcemaximizer.com for any questions.

About The Author

Hi there!
Thanks for visiting my blog. My name is Buyan Thyagarajan (Buyan47) . I am a Salesforce consultant specializing in higher education and helping businesses to measure business results , be proactive with their customers , prevent problems before hand and make the right decisions using Salesforce CRM. This blog would help you in the following way.
a. For Universities, my articles and tips would help you to increase your student recruitment, get better insights on your marketing campaigns and ensure student success by maximizing the features available in your salesforce org, integrate with your student information systems ( Banner, Ancor etc) and create a connected campus on the digital world.
b. For Salesforce admins, my articles would help you to be proactive with your salesforce crm, prevent problems and make the right decisions on different problems with salesforce.
c. For Business executives, my articles would help to measure business results with your salesforce crm, increase adoption and provide solutions for your business problems.
d. For IT executives and developers, my articles would help you on best practices on change management, provide insights on increasing your performance with your current development teams and guide you to make better architectural decisions with salesforce and salesforce1.
I am passionate about the following.
a. Software is meant to automate work but in reality IT is the most manual industry where programmers have to type those 100,000 lines of code everyday to make things work. Programmers get lost in the code and business folks wonder why the programmers are not getting it. I have some insights on this and in the process of publishing a book which should help in the following.
a. Help IT teams to be innovative and offer business value
b. Career pathway for programmers
c. Relevant things a business user can provide to IT to get things done quick.
Please feel free to post your comments on the site on my articles and any questions you have and I would be glad to answer it for you.
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Ph: 302-438-4097
m: buyan47@gmail.com